Chapter 4: New Home, New Friends, New Sport

The past two weeks has seen much progress for Hayley and I, getting settled in Lima. We are all moved into our new apartment!! 28 de julio 399 depto. is where we now call home. It is an apartment rented to mostly international students, newly remodeled, and in a perfect location. We have a hammock in our living room and a glimpse of the ocean from our very dirty windows! The only drawback we can see so far is the street noise that comes in through the windows, which are not designed to seal shut due to the always-warm weather in Lima and the fact that it NEVER storms. Every once in a while I wake up in a panic attack from all the honking, the Limenos' favorite driving activity.

I'm also making a nice little group of friends here. Magnus, Norwegian former roomate. Maurice, Peruvian-grew-up-in-the-US friend of Magnus, and now friend of mine. He's very adventurous and has been great in getting me to meet people. Ryan, lovable scardy-cat American frat boy. Bea, one of my first girlfriends! She's Peruvian and is starting Ensena Peru, the Peruvian Teach for America. I look forward to inviting all these people to the wonderful Thanksgiving dinner Hayley and I have already begun to plan!

I had accepted long ago, being from northern Minnesota and having no immediate plans to spend an extended amount of time in southern California, that I would probably never learn how to surf. So I surprised myself a bit when Maurice asked if I wanted to take a surfing lesson, and I enthusiastically said "Yes!" Yesterday I squeezed into a wetsuit, hopped on a board, and tried my hand at surfing! It was physically exhausting, paddling uses muscules I generally do not use on a daily basis, but terrifically fun. I would never say I actually SURFED yet, but I got close, and will defintiely be returning to the water to try again soon.

Each day Hayley and I exclaim at some point in the day, "I can't believe we're here, in LIMA, in SOUTH AMERICA!" We are surprised each day at some new facet of the Peruvian culture, some new market we just discovered, or some new delicious fruit called chirimoya that had been hiding from us all our lives. Lima, not an initially charming city, is slowly showing us her personality, and we're loving it.